Not a real post: Livejournal Edition
For people who read the livejournal QT feed, here is the new feed for the new blog
Last Post
This is Questioning Transphobia’s first incarnation’s last post. Due to unwanted ads and the difficulty in excising them, and much help from one of my readers, QT has been moved. There’s still some things to clean up (like the Trans 101 links pointing to wordpress.com instead of the new blog), but it’s mostly as functional as it is here.
Please update RSS feeds and blogrolls as needed and able. Thank you all. :)
Hate speech? In my queue? It’s likelier than you think! Also, misc stuff
Pre-Monday open post:
I’ve pretty much worked through everything I can without actually getting help regarding my earlier post. Yes, I’m still being vague about what it is. I want to be clear that it does directly impact my ability to produce blog posts regularly, and this is not something I am able to change at this time. Thank you for the supportive comments on my previous post.
The Monday Open Post will bring a surprise of amazingness and brilliance.
I’ve recently received some hate speech and actual threats in my moderation queue.
I may post in greater depth later, but I want everyone to be aware that occasional commenters have posted anti-trans hate speech several times on this blog over a period of several months, and topped it off with a threat to reveal my personal information (address, specifically) without my consent. Another commenter from the London area, from a different IP address, conveyed further hate speech and anti-trans slurs, and used language that had I heard it in person, I would have immediately called 911. To be more specific: It’s a death threat.
These comments were posted very close together, indicating to me that they were at least in communication about doing this.The language both trolls used is very similar to the transphobic language frequently used at the radical feminist blog “A Room of our Own.” I suspect that both are either readers or contributors, but I don’t have anything firm at this time.
I don’t particularly care about hiding this. I want people to be aware of who is doing this – who is actually at this point trying to intimidate me and my co-bloggers, who is trying to attack and harass us. Who is specifically using threats intended to silence us.
If any trans bloggers would like their IP addresses so you can look out for them (or find comments they’ve written in the past), e-mail qt.lisah@gmail.com and I’ll send all information you need.
Edit: Removed names because I don’t know for sure.
Edit a second time: I used up all remaining spoons on responding to this thing, and I didn’t realize that Butterflywings was harassing Helen at BoP as well. Also Lucky and Athena, for that matter. I love the bullying campaign aimed at Helen, complete with threats – and Butterflywings then demanding that Helen stop bullying her. I swear to god. are these people for real?
Comments of a global nature
So basically, as well as writing here, I occasionally write elsewhere, very often on entirely non trans-related issues (shocking I know). One of these places is at Global Comment (“where the world thinks out loud”), edited by the redoubtable Natalia Antonova. There’s a few other writers there you might be familiar with, including Renee from Womanist Musings and Sarah from Season of the Bitch.
Anyway, I don’t usually plug these things cos I’m not big on the self-promotion, but sod it. I recently posted about an experiment a trans group in New York performed which may be of interest, but there’s a host of interesting and thoughtful writing on all kinds of issues.
So yeah, go read. And follow them on Twitter.
Trans unemployment project
I recently posted a pretty 101ish post about trans unemployment on Feministe, where I got a comment from André Pérez at Genderqueer Chicago. André’s working on an audio project about trans unemployment to be submitted to NPR and in need of participants–activists, social workers, trans community members, legislators and more. If anyone’s interested in participating, I suggest you get in contact here.
Belated Monday Open Post – Online Anonymity Edition
Not all open posts will be on Monday, although I’ll try to put one up every week.
Share any links you like in the comments, talk about anything you want to talk about. I know comments are a bit sparse lately, but hopefully we can get some life in here.
Also, hopefully, QT will be on a new server very soon.
Now, these two posts by Quinnae Moongazer about Blizzard’s RealID mess last week:
Although Blizzard’s decided not to go through with this decision, this is a kind of zeitgeist that’s developing in some corners of the internet (such as Facebook) that people should be expected to use their real names in online communities. As Mark Zuckerberg, the owner of Facebook has said, we should be expected to use the same identity in all of our interactions, and that people who don’t want to must have something to hide or be ashamed of. And of course many of us really do have something to hide, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s the fact that we have the right to privacy and to control what aspects of our lives we put online:
For Zuckerberg, that ethos means sharing everything. He disagrees with the notion that people have different identities. To him, the idea that someone is different at work than at home, than at a rock concert, is dishonest. Says Kirkpatrick, “He believes that he will live a better life personally, and all of us will be more honest, and ultimately it will be better for the world if we dispense with that belief.”
This is a very cis white heterosexual male perspective.
But I expect further RealID plans to push in this direction again, and I expect Facebook to continue messing with privacy settings to make it harder to lock away your entire profile. I also expect others to start adopting this mindset (although not everyone).
The Muppet Show muppets singing their own version of Bohemian Rhapsody.
New York Times Says Trans People are Ethically Required to Out Themselves on Dates
Randy Cohen, the ethicist*, has declared that trans people are ethically required to disclose to their dates. He says:
Getting to know someone is a gradual process. I might panic if on a first date someone began talking about what to name the nine kids she’s eager for us to raise in our new home under the sea. Premature disclosure can be as unnerving as protracted concealment. But as partners cultivate romance, and particularly as they move toward erotic involvement, there are things each should reveal, things they would not mention to a casual acquaintance — any history of S.T.D.’s, for example, or the existence of any current spouse. Even before a first kiss, this person should have told you those things that you would regard as germane to this phase of your evolving relationship, including his being transgendered. Clearly he thought you’d find it pertinent; that’s why he discreditably withheld it, lest you reject him.
So he actually does use the word “panic” in that paragraph, which is kind of ominous. He also compares disclosing that you’re trans to disclosing STDs or whether you’re currently married to someone else.
As usually happens when it comes to trans people and dating, confidentiality and privacy are thrown out the window as soon as cis people insert themselves into the situation. Cohen (who is, by the way, a humorist and not an ethicist, who has written for the historically transphobic David Letterman show) says that it is fine for the cis woman who asked this question to out the trans man she dated to her friends, that her right to process something that doesn’t actually have a serious impact on her supercedes his right to privacy or any consideration for confidentiality.
He tries to soften it by saying “No handbills, and don’t ask him to announce it from the pulpit,” but as many of us have experienced, once someone outs you, the word can spread like wildfire. Cis people seem to think that learning that someone is trans is a particularly salacious and juicy rumor, one that will get passed around from person to person. It just takes hitting one cis person who doesn’t care more about your safety than about hir ability to get a cheap thrill exposing your secrets, and in my experience the majority of cis people are like this. Cohen even describes the trans man in question as discreditable, because he withheld this information until he was ready to divulge it. This is a pretty explicit acknowledgement of how many cis people view trans people: Our transness makes us discreditable. It doesn’t matter when we’re outed (by ourselves or others), once we are, we’re discreditable. Everything we say is doubted – about our competence, about our honesty, about our gender. Everything about us is false except what cis people allow us to have by inscribing upon us, usually against our will.
For an example, remember the trans man who crashed a trolley while texting, and how many responses implied he shouldn’t even be allowed to drive a trolley because he’s trans? How about this cis man who caused the worst train crash in 15 years while texting? Somehow his cisness didn’t serve as a warning sign, right? The first story I linked even implies that Aiden Quinn was hired strictly because he was a minority, and not because he had any competence in driving a trolley. Okay, in both cases? Texting while driving is a really bad idea. Texting while transporting passengers is many times worse. But trans man crashes while texting? Trans people are dangerous. Cis man crashes while texting? Silence.
I read about this story on Bilerico, and Dr. Weiss dissects it pretty nicely. She also suggests writing the New York Times to complain about this:
I strongly suggest that Cohen is in need of criticism and education regarding transgender people, particularly from gay and straight allies of transgender people. He ought to issue a retraction. Here’s the address to write to him: ethicist@nytimes.com Letters to the editor may be addressed to letters@nytimes.com.
It is important to also mention the racial element of anti-trans hate crimes when discussing trans panic.
* Not really an ethicist.
U.S. passport fees increase
There’s always a catch, isn’t there? After last month’s announcement by the State Department that trans people will no longer be required to have undergone surgery in order to change gender on passports comes a further announcement that passport fees are set to rise on July 13.
Via the Seattle Times and others (the State Department website’s link won’t open for me, for some reason):
If you need a U.S. passport, get one soon before fees increase steeply in mid-July.
The cost for a first-time passport for an adult (age 16 and older) will increase to $135, up from the current $100, on July 13. A renewal for an adult passport will be $110, up from $75. A first-time passport or renewal for a minor (younger than 16) will be $105, up from $85.
The U.S. State Department noted the price increase on its website this week. The prices include an “acceptance fee,” payable to facilities where passport applications are taken.
Travelers who need extra pages in their passports to accommodate more visas/stamps will pay $82 starting July 13. That service has been free.
The fee also is increasing for a passport card, a more limited form of federally-issued identification that can be used for land/sea travel between the U.S. and Mexico, Canada and a few other Western Hemisphere countries. A first-time passport card for an adult will cost $55 (up from $45). A renewal will be $30 (up from $20). For a minor, a passport card (first-time and renewal) is $40 (up from $35). The passport card is not valid for international air travel.
To get information on applying for a passport, formally called a “passport book,” and to download application forms, see www.travel.state.gov or phone 877-487-2778. Adult passports and passport cards are valid for 10 years, five years for minors.
First-time applicants and those younger than 16 must apply in person at an acceptance facility, which includes post offices, libraries and certain government offices. Find passport-acceptance facilities by ZIP code at Find passport-acceptance facilities by ZIP code at iafdb.travel.state.gov/
Renewals for most adults can be done by mail.
Mantra
There is no outside to power. There is no liberation that cannot also be oppressive and coercive.
Apply as necessary.
My (in)attention to QT
I haven’t abandoned QT, but I have been taking a long break. It’s not something I planned as a break, and it’s not something I really see as a break, but it has to do with all the other times I’ve taken long or short breaks from blogging.
Anyway, I’m still processing what I’ve just been learning about myself, and I don’t know if/when I’ll be prepared to talk about it. I am sorry that I’ve not been able to even keep up with something as simple as Monday open posts. I’ll try to get one up this Monday, and hopefully get some actual posts written again soon.
Other things are in the works to improve QT. I know there’s been trouble with ads (for example) recently, and that will be taken care of. I apologize that it hasn’t happened yet, but see above.
Thanks all for reading here.
